About Me
I am the Founder and Chief Principal Investigator of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC Project), a research collaboration of over 150 researchers across 29 countries covering over half of the world's population and over two-thirds of the world's tobacco users. Since 2002, the ITC Project has created population cohort studies to measure and understand the factors that are related to tobacco use and to evaluate the impact of tobacco control policies of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on tobacco use. The ITC Project has published over 650 scientific articles, including many evaluation studies of FCTC policies such as graphic warnings, smoke-free laws, tax policies, bans on tobacco advertising and marketing, impact of media campaigns, plain packaging, and bans on additives/flavourings in tobacco products. These studies have contributed to the evidence base for strengthening and accelerating FCTC policies in many countries. I was a member of the Expert Group that was chosen by the FCTC Conference of the Parties to assess the impact of the treaty in its first decade. More recently, the ITC Project has added a key focus on the impact of alternative nicotine products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products across many countries to assess patterns of use among adults and among youth, to address questions about the interplay and transitions between these new products and the deadliest tobacco products—cigarettes and other combustible products. We are also conducting multi-country studies of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smoking and vaping.